The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Alex Richards

After the initial round of voting in the Student Government Association presidential election the ticket of Patrick Boland '09 and Cary Finnegan '09 and the ticket of Joel Pitt '09 and Dan Heinrich '09 faced off in a runoff election-Boland/Finnegan held a slight advantage after the first round. However, the runoff, held March 19-21, ended with no candidates elected after the SGA Judiciary Committee disqualified Boland/Finnegan for illegal campaigning and Pitt/Heinrich withdrew from the race to force another election, one with Boland/Finnegan back on the ballot.

A final third round began April 7 and will conclude April 9 (See article, Page right).

The Judiciary Committee disqualified Boland/Finnegan for an e-mail Finnegan sent to Head Residents (Finnegan is Head Resident of Perkins-Wilson hall) after campaigning for the runoff had ceased. While the e-mail was sent before the campaigning deadline, the list server collect e-mails all day and deliver them in one e-mail shortly after midnight at the end of the day. Therefore, Finnegan's e-mail to HRs soliciting support appeared well after the 5 p.m. campaigning deadline passed.

Boland told the Echo on April 8 that he was "really disappointed in the ruling" and that afterwards he was overwhelmed by the student support that emerged on campus afterwards.

According to SGA Vice President Jeffrey Mullins '08, who oversees the election process, he received complaints from students and administrators about the timing of the e-mail-the complaints did not come from Pitt or Heinrich. "They came first from a Head Resident and second from an administrator," Mullins said. In his capacity, Mullins takes the complaints and states the facts of the case to the Judiciary.

The Judiciary is a body modeled after the United States government and provides a checks and balances system.
In this case, the Judiciary met late Wednesday March 19 and heard the facts from Mullins as well as questioned Finnegan on the e-mail and specific aspects of the incident. Following their review of the case, they voted to disqualify Boland/Finnegan.

The Judiciary met almost nightly during elections to hear allegations of various infractions and some other students were disqualified, and in some cases, certain campaign materials (posters in academic buildings, for example) were required to be taken down.

Other candidates have been disqualified for similar infractions-Alex Hoder '09 was disqualified in the race for Treasurer and Athul Ravunniarath and Harry Davis were disqualified in the runoff election for Class of 2011 representatives.

Continued...

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